BY-ELECTION: Colin Burke concedes, congratulates Muszkat

MATT HARRISMatt has been a reporter with The Observer since December 2016. He has a sports reporting background, previously working for the AAP and NRL.com. He now covers mostly general news and is the newspaper’s Council reporter.

BUSINESSMAN Colin Burke is eyeing 2020 after conceding to Natalia Muszkat in the race for the vacant Gladstone Regional Council councillor position.

Mr Burke knew he faced an uphill battle to overtake Ms Muszkat, who led by 861 votes before he conceded via social media just after 1pm.

"I have just talked to Mark Larney the Returning Officer for the election - even if I got all of the outstanding votes it would not be enough to win. So I am happy to concede," Mr Burke said on Facebook.

He congratulated Ms Muszkat on her win.

"Natalia has worked really hard and since she lost the last campaign she's basically been in election mode, so she's got the passion for the community," he said.

"She's worked really hard and won the position so I congratulate her."

Mr Burke said the lessons learnt from his by-election campaign will place him in a better position come 2020.

"It's a good training run for 2020 and it's taught me a few things about what I can do and can improve on," he said.

"We'll be putting that all in place over the next 12 months.

"We will have a little wind-up and analysis of what we did. We didn't have much time - it was a really short campaign - there are some things we can do better.

"There was a strong consensus in the population that didn't know there was an election on ... which is a bit unfair on those people but that will be different in 2020 because it will be a full election."

The principal of Elders Real Estate Gladstone wasn't shy on spending money on advertising with electronic billboards, magazine front covers, advertisements in The Observer and a front-door advertisement at Stockland Gladstone to reach a wider audience.